Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit boundless Buffy Silverman for Roundup. I've spent the week blessedly AT HOME gardening, reading, writing, cleaning...and lunching! Seems like every day I've had a lunch date. 'Tis the season! If you want a peek inside my reading-as-a-writer life, be sure to check out my post over at Smack Dab in the Middle, where I share excerpts from a few MG books in my HUGE computer folder titled "Books I've Read." (Yes, recording beautiful words written by others is an important part of my life and writing practice!) Prepare to be inspired. Also, this j ..read more

 Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure and visit Ruth and her dream of Haiti at There is no such thing as a godforsaken town for Roundup. Whew, what a National Poetry Month it's been! And it's not over yet...I travel today for a conference tomorrow...and then...MAY!!! By the way, it has come to my attention that no one has received my annual NPM Live Your Poem postcard. I sent them out the first week of April, but they are LOST, I tell you. LOST! (I've been told several things...apparently there are big problems at the Birmingham USPS distribution center. I don't know, because I've mai ..read more

 Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit innovative Heidi at my juicy little universe for Roundup. Her WhisperShout writing workshop and magazine for young writers sound amazing! Margaret Simon & Irene Latham Last week it was my pleasure to hang out and present with Margaret Simon at the Kaigler Book Festival at USM (home of the amazing deGrummond Children's Collection!). It was so great to see attendees writing poems in our session!! I made so many new friends and got to catch up with folks I haven't seen since before covid...good books, good times (as Lee Bennett Ho ..read more

  Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit wonderful Jone Rush Maculloch for Roundup. Today I am excited and delighted to welcome co-anthologists June Cotner and Nancy Tupper Ling to share about their newest project BLESS THIS EARTH, illus. by Keum Jin Song, brought to us by Convergent. Divided into five chapters, young readers, ages 3-7, are invited to explore a colorful world filled with musical rainforests, majestic birds, sea creatures, stars, and much more! June Cotner is the author of almost forty books, including the bestsellers Graces, Bedside Pr ..read more

 Hello and Happy Poetry Friday!  Poetry Friday Roundup is here at Live Your Poem! Please leave your link below. You are invited to the Inlinkz link party! Click here to enter It occurs to me that our Poetry Friday Roundup is a Community Poetry Project.  So is our annual KidLit Progressive Poem, which began in 2012 as a way to celebrate National Poetry Month (April) as a community of writers. The latest line in our Progressive Poem is here today. Yay! Thanks to Margaret for organizing and creating the beautiful graphic...and to the lovely poets who've gotten us off to suc ..read more

 Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit terrific Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect for Roundup. Here we are on the eve of National Poetry Month...wow! I love this time of year. Thanks to Jama at Jama's Alphabet Soup for including a roundup of National Poetry Month projects...so inspiring! I will have much to share with you next week, when Poetry Roundup is here...and the Progressive Poem is here...and my public poetry project to which so many of you have contributed will be up and running! Here's a sneak peak of some of the bounty that has arrived in my mailbox these past weeks ..read more

 Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit radiant Rose at Imagine the Possibilities for Roundup. This week I started teaching Haiku workshops for Friends of the Locust Fork River. (For the first time ever, their annual contest will include poetry!) And since poetry is for all ages, I shared time this week at our local Senior Center and also with 7th and 9th grade biology students at Locust Fork High School. I've got a couple more sessions in the coming weeks.Yay! Something I've been thinking about lately is how poetry is tied to dreams. I have oft shared the book From Where You Dre ..read more

Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit terrific Tanita at fiction, instead of lies for Roundup.  A couple of reminders: 1) I'm accepting YOUR poems for inclusion in my Poem in Your Pocket public art project through the end of the month! Details here.  So many thanks to those who have already sent me poems...Blount County, Alabama, is going to be awash in poetry!! 2)I got a notice from canva that I just created my 500th project! Y'all! I do love me some canva. :) Today I'm excited to welcome Michelle Schaub today to Live Your Poem, in celebration of her "tree book,"&n ..read more

 Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit lovely Laura Purdie Salas for Roundup. with 3 SC Librarians of the Year (l-r): Pamela Williams, Angela Durham, & Lonie Lewis (2024 winner!) Shout out to South Carolina educators! Charles and I had so much fun meeting folks and talking books with you at South Carolina Association of School Librarians in Columbia. Thank you for inviting us. Writer-friends: don't miss my post over at Smack Dab in the Middle about How to Rebound from Rejection. (This writing biz can be so tough sometimes!) the boys, the gi ..read more

camellias from our yard!  Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit lovely Linda at TeacherDance for Roundup. If you haven't had a chance, I invite you to read my Poetry from Daily Life column. Many thanks to David Harrison for including me! Now, a reminder: I'd love to feature your poems in my public poetry project! Details here. Also, Charles and I are grateful and excited about folks signing up for our Highlights Working Retreat for Poets June 23-26. Please join us! Today's ArtSpeak: FOLK ART is after a piece by Vollis Simpson.  Thank you, Kay McGriff for telling me ..read more